What really happened in Vietnam?

[Glorious Union]

I dont beleive a word my history teacher says since he told us that the North Vietnamese invaded South Vietnam because they were jealous of their mopeds.

So tell me, oh reliable sources of revleft, what really happened in the Vietnam/American war? Just a summary is fine.

[The Idler]

William Blum puts it succinctly

NGO DINH DIEM
President of South Vietnam
Ngo Dinh Diem oppressed the Vietnamese people so badly that many of them turned to the communists for protection from his ruthless rule. Even President Eisenhower admitted that "had elections been held, possibly 80% of the population would have voted for Ho Chi Minh, the communist leader". Yet Diem, who had once lived in the US, had connections, in Washington, who liked his anti-communism. He founded the Can Lao Party (CLP), a secret police force overseen by his brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu, and Nhu's wife, Madame Nhu. The three were notorious for their ineptitude and cruelty. The CLP was not even their idea, it was originally promoted by the US State Department to rid the country of communists. Diem alienated urban professionals by suppressing all opposition to his regime. He alienated peasants by canceling their age-old local elections, forcing them off their land, and moving them into "agrovilles" surrounded by barbed wire, which even US officials conceded bore a striking resemblance to concentration camps. Ultimately, he angered his own military officers because he promoted on the basis of loyalty, not merit. In an effort to keep Diem in power, the US tried to persuade him to make political reforms. He refused, so they persuaded him to make military reforms. But when Diem was finally overthrown and assassinated in 1963, none of his generals rose to defend him. Nor did the US, which, after 8 years, had finally realized that Diem wasn't popular.A more in depth article from Blum is here (http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Asia/Vietnam_War_US_Lost.html).

[Vendetta]

I dont beleive a word my history teacher says since he told us that the North Vietnamese invaded South Vietnam because they were jealous of their mopeds.

...really? Your teacher needs to lose his teaching degree.

[Glorious Union]

...really? Your teacher needs to lose his teaching degree.
People on this site have told me that. But as far as communism is concerned he is alowed to rewrite history for us, so long as the USA is still the good guys of course.

And thanks darrelljon for the accurate history.

[mikelepore]

The National Liberation Front or NLF was an independence movement organized in the south, and they didn't come from the north. Soldiers from the north also traveled into southern territory. Both of these forces regarded Vietnam as one country, temporarily subjected to an artificial division into northern and southern zones. Therefore there is a basic confusion in any reference to an "invasion" of the south by the northern army.

[x359594]

I dont beleive a word my history teacher says since he told us that the North Vietnamese invaded South Vietnam...

I commend you ability to think critically and reject the thesis of your history teacher. Viet Nam was artificially partitioned by the United States. Others have already filled in some of the pertinent details.

There is a vast literature on the subject, and I recommend Anatomy of a War by Gabriel Kolko as the best single volume history of the conflict.

[Stranger Than Paradise]

-North Vietnam invaded South.
-America so scared of the commie north defeating south
-Lyndon Johnson uses some attack on American boats at the gulf of Tonkin as excuse to declare war on Vietnam
-US massacre various villages looking for members of Vietcong, Napalm etc.
-US switch pres' Nixon in now
-He does a sneaky thing where he takes troops out of Vietnam to appease the public but he was secretly sending more than before
-IN '75 US pulls out
-Soon Commie North takes over.

Of course Commie could be put in inverted commas but I don't know enough about the NLF to make a judgement.

[Communist Theory]

My grandpa threatened a private for falling asleep on watch duty. :lol:

[x359594]

-North Vietnam invaded South...

Not so. Viet Nam was ONE country artifically partioned. The so-called RVN was entirely a creature of the US, so there can be no question of the "north" invading the "south".

[Kassad]

A widespread national liberation movement rallied under the banner of Marxism-Leninism and took up arms against imperialist aggression that had ruled the area for some time. Like all socialist organizations and movements, they were demonized and painted as ruthless savages. Of course, we realize that the Vietnamese were struggling under foreign imperialism and the struggle swept the entire nation. The United States and France attempted to impede liberation of Vietnam and the refusal to respect the right to self-determination and class struggle led to a bloody war that claimed millions of lives. Of course, despite the fact that American intervention was the prime contributor to the overall death toll, the American army was painted as liberating Vietnam from the oppression of socialism. It's laughable to think that this was anything else besides the usual intervention to maintain military hegemony over different parts of the world.

[PRC-UTE]

The National Liberation Front or NLF was an independence movement organized in the south, and they didn't come from the north. Soldiers from the north also traveled into southern territory. Both of these forces regarded Vietnam as one country, temporarily subjected to an artificial division into northern and southern zones. Therefore there is a basic confusion in any reference to an "invasion" of the south by the northern army.

this sums it up well. I'd add that the USA and its puppets were afraid the communists would actually take the election as well.

[dez]

... Cambodia, laos and vietnam were united as one country under the boot of the french, a national liberation communist movement arose and fought against that (as well as japanese occupation during ww2), won, pushed the french to the south, signed a peace treaty, reatreated, and instead of elections they were handed a massive war and an imperialistic attempt of the US to make a partition and claim the former french area of influence to itself using of the former french-associated elite.

[The Idler]

There was also the fact that soldiers started fragging their officers, and riots back in the US.

[Das war einmal]

-North Vietnam invaded South.
-America so scared of the commie north defeating south
-Lyndon Johnson uses some attack on American boats at the gulf of Tonkin as excuse to declare war on Vietnam
-US massacre various villages looking for members of Vietcong, Napalm etc.
-US switch pres' Nixon in now
-He does a sneaky thing where he takes troops out of Vietnam to appease the public but he was secretly sending more than before
-IN '75 US pulls out
-Soon Commie North takes over.

Of course Commie could be put in inverted commas but I don't know enough about the NLF to make a judgement.

You are totally wrong. North Vietnam never invaded South. There were upcoming elections in South Vietnam were inevitably the communist party would have won. There for the 'boat attack' was a made up scene to invade the North by the USA, to contain communism

[Louise Michel]

I guess the history teacher would have a couple of reasons to lie about the Vietnam war. Firstly because the US suffered a humiliating military defeat and secondly because of the numerous acts of criminal brutality the US government committed. The widespread use of the defoliant Agent Orange for example which killed hundreds of thousands of civilians and caused hundreds of thousands of children to be born with birth defects. Then there was the carpet bombing of Cambodia which went on for about a year and also killed hundreds of thousands of people.

[Communist Theory]

I guess the history teacher would have a couple of reasons to lie about the Vietnam war. Firstly because the US suffered a humiliating military defeat and secondly because of the numerous acts of criminal brutality the US government committed. The widespread use of the defoliant Agent Orange for example which killed hundreds of thousands of civilians and caused hundreds of thousands of children to be born with birth defects. Then there was the carpet bombing of Cambodia which went on for about a year and also killed hundreds of thousands of people.
It also caused cancer in Vietnam vets years later.

[Prairie Fire]

Darrelljon


But when Diem was finally overthrown and assassinated in 1963, none of his generals rose to defend him. Nor did the US, which, after 8 years, had finally realized that Diem wasn't popular.


Actually, the US had an implicit hand in his assasination,as Diem was starting to become a bit nationalist.

He may have been their puppet, but he was still expendable.

[TheCultofAbeLincoln]

It also caused cancer in Vietnam vets years later.

Not only that, but it also caused shizophrenia and other mental problems for a lot of vets. Apart, of course, from the massive mental problems caused by the nature of the war itself. A lot of people who went over and survived never got it all back if you know what I mean.

Anyway, the NLF, or Viet Cong, was pretty much wiped out as an effective fighting force after the Tet offensive in 1968. The NVA took Saigon and united Vietnam in 1975, several years after all US combat forces had withdrawn.

Also, apart from moral grounds, one huge problem I have with that conflict is the draft we had at the time. Now, I have no problem with conscription if a. The threat actually threatens the US and b. Everyone is conscripted (well, all males at the very least). That is how the system was in WWII and I have no problem with it. In Vietnam, on the other hand, the fucking lottery system was used to determine who went. And more than that, if you went to college you would be exempt from going. So, what happened was middle-class, almost exclusively white kids got mommy and daddy to pay for their schooling so they could protest the war while working-class kids ended up being the ones dying. This could help explain why blacks made up a massive portion of the men in Vietnam as compared to their % of the general population. Now, I'm not saying I support what the soldiers were doing at all but they didn't have the means to get away from the draft and FUCK ALL THOSE RICH, NEW LEFT PIECES OF SHIT, honestly.

And seriously, your teacher should be thrown on the street for, at the very least, absolutely failing to explain the curriculum.

[TheCultofAbeLincoln]

Oh, and regarding Agent Orange, check out the Monsanto Corp. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto) which manufactured that shit and today is most famous for it's chemical weapon weed-killer RoundUp. That is a fucked up organization, even by today's standards. Check out their genetic engineering of crops and, more importantly, the legal implications of it.

Scary, scary Brave New World shit.

edit:


Since the mid-1990s, it has sued some 150 US farmers for patent infringement (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_infringement) in connection with its GE seed. The usual claim involves violation of a technology agreement that prohibits farmers from saving seed from one season's crop to plant the next. One farmer received an eight-month prison sentence, in addition to having to pay damages, when a Monsanto case turned into a criminal prosecution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_prosecution). Monsanto reports that it pursues approximately 500 cases of suspected infringement annually.

[mikelepore]

I'd add that the USA and its puppets were afraid the communists would actually take the election as well.

Yes, in 1954, at a time when the French army was still involved, both sides signed a treaty in Geneva, called "Agreement on the Cessation of Hostilities" -- here's copy of that document : http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/inch001.asp . It called for an election to be held to reunify Vietnam. In 1956 the U.S. (Eisenhower) and South Vietnam (Diem) decided not to permit the election to be held because they predicted that, if the election were held, most people in the South would join the people in the North in voting for Ho Chi Minh. The NLF was formed in response to that cancellation of the 1956 election. Then U.S. President Kennedy, inaugurated in 1961, began sending a growing number of "advisors" to Vietnam, and the rest of the story is pretty well-known.

[black magick hustla]

I guess the history teacher would have a couple of reasons to lie about the Vietnam war. Firstly because the US suffered a humiliating military defeat and secondly because of the numerous acts of criminal brutality the US government committed. The widespread use of the defoliant Agent Orange for example which killed hundreds of thousands of civilians and caused hundreds of thousands of children to be born with birth defects. Then there was the carpet bombing of Cambodia which went on for about a year and also killed hundreds of thousands of people.

I don't think the US suffered a "humiliating" defeat. The US mass murdered two million vietnamese while the vietnamese were only able to take around 40k troops. I think it is a leftist myth that the vietnamese had some sort of glorious success. The "success" was drenched in the blood of millions of peasants.

[Glorious Union]

I don't think the US suffered a "humiliating" defeat. The US mass murdered two million vietnamese while the vietnamese were only able to take around 40k troops. I think it is a leftist myth that the vietnamese had some sort of glorious success. The "success" was drenched in the blood of millions of peasants.

I thought my history teacher was exagerating when he said the Americans killed over 2 million Vietnamese.

[PRC-UTE]

I don't think the US suffered a "humiliating" defeat. The US mass murdered two million vietnamese while the vietnamese were only able to take around 40k troops. I think it is a leftist myth that the vietnamese had some sort of glorious success. The "success" was drenched in the blood of millions of peasants.

it was at a terrible cost, but it demonstrated that a peasant and worker army that mobilised the masses could defeat a much more powerful imperialist force.

[The Idler]

Not only that, but it also caused shizophrenia and other mental problems for a lot of vets. Apart, of course, from the massive mental problems caused by the nature of the war itself. A lot of people who went over and survived never got it all back if you know what I mean.

Anyway, the NLF, or Viet Cong, was pretty much wiped out as an effective fighting force after the Tet offensive in 1968. The NVA took Saigon and united Vietnam in 1975, several years after all US combat forces had withdrawn.

Also, apart from moral grounds, one huge problem I have with that conflict is the draft we had at the time. Now, I have no problem with conscription if a. The threat actually threatens the US and b. Everyone is conscripted (well, all males at the very least). That is how the system was in WWII and I have no problem with it. In Vietnam, on the other hand, the fucking lottery system was used to determine who went. And more than that, if you went to college you would be exempt from going. So, what happened was middle-class, almost exclusively white kids got mommy and daddy to pay for their schooling so they could protest the war while working-class kids ended up being the ones dying. This could help explain why blacks made up a massive portion of the men in Vietnam as compared to their % of the general population. Now, I'm not saying I support what the soldiers were doing at all but they didn't have the means to get away from the draft and FUCK ALL THOSE RICH, NEW LEFT PIECES OF SHIT, honestly.

And seriously, your teacher should be thrown on the street for, at the very least, absolutely failing to explain the curriculum.What about the Kent State massacre and fragging of officers? Libcom regards the GI resistance as one of the decisive factors in ending the war (http://libcom.org/history/vietnam-gi-resistance). More info is available on combat refusals here (http://home.mweb.co.za/re/redcap/vietcrim.htm).

[TheCultofAbeLincoln]

What about the Kent State massacre and fragging of officers? Libcom regards the GI resistance as one of the decisive factors in ending the war (http://libcom.org/history/vietnam-gi-resistance). More info is available on combat refusals here (http://home.mweb.co.za/re/redcap/vietcrim.htm).

Oh, well, I didn't mean that protesters should have gotten gunned down in the streets or anything like that. My point was that, due to conscription, protesters should have kept the focus on the real scum in DC, not against the soldiers themselves.

And I can totally understand the fragging incidents. The way that war was run, it should have been expected. I can't even imagine how I'd react to getting thrown into the jungle and put in that situation. No doubt the war in Vietnam was tearing both the country and the military itself apart, forcing the issue of withdrawal.

Both interesting reads, by the way.

[Rosa Provokateur]

'Nam was occupied by the French so around 1945 or '46 a movement kicked up to oust them. Ho-Chi Mihn ended up becoming it's leader and took back control of N. Vietnam. The French are beaten and the U.S. comes in to provide "military advisment" a.k.a try to do what the French couldnt. They create a government in the South and carry out operations against the North Vietnamese Army and the Viet-Cong guerillas operating in the South. The Tet Offensive turns the tide in N. Vietnam's favor and the conflict ends on April 30, 1975 with the fall of Saigon.

[The Idler]

Oh, well, I didn't mean that protesters should have gotten gunned down in the streets or anything like that. My point was that, due to conscription, protesters should have kept the focus on the real scum in DC, not against the soldiers themselves.

And I can totally understand the fragging incidents. The way that war was run, it should have been expected. I can't even imagine how I'd react to getting thrown into the jungle and put in that situation. No doubt the war in Vietnam was tearing both the country and the military itself apart, forcing the issue of withdrawal.

Both interesting reads, by the way.Thanks. Isn't there a contradiction in criticizing middle-class students but being generally uncritical of middle-class officers who issued the orders? As anarchists say "we support our troops when they shoot their officers". Isn't the real class enemy here the state apparatus including the army and all imperialist war? Have a look at Lt. Wolfe (Mark Moses) in the film Platoon.

[Louise Michel]

I don't think the US suffered a "humiliating" defeat. The US mass murdered two million vietnamese while the vietnamese were only able to take around 40k troops. I think it is a leftist myth that the vietnamese had some sort of glorious success. The "success" was drenched in the blood of millions of peasants.


You're quite wrong and quite right. Yes, it was at a terrible cost, but the US was humiliated by a tiny country despite its massively greater fire-power. Just look at the videos of the last helicopters out of Saigon. And it resulted in the "Vietnam Syndrome." This was a conscript army, everybody had to go and fight and often die in Vietnam, and the bodybags coming home made the US (public) unwilling to so easily sanction the government's wars.

[Brother No. 1]

The US always tells lies,or most of the time, about the Vietnam war. "We had ro get out or else we would destroy the country." "The Politicons got in the way" and other countless crap. The US got out of the Vietnam war for the relaized that they couldn't win. Plus the countless anti-Human acts they commited in that war. For example: the napalm bombs when they bombed the villages. Who knows how many North vietnamese lives were taken and plus how mant Infants were killed during those raids. Plus they most likely harassened the north Vietnamese citizens to tell them where the Vietcong was. the US troops THOUGHT thery were the good guys and "heros." But after that War they most likely thought differently. The US troops thought this would be a easy war a "Go in and out" war. But when Imperialism is casted apon a country and they people wont just sit by and watch this go on then the Imperialist forces will lose. In their eyes the Vietnam war should have never began for it costed THEM so many troops. Do they care for the people of Vietnam and how much they lost. No they dont.

[mikelepore]

it was at a terrible cost, but it demonstrated that a peasant and worker army that mobilised the masses could defeat a much more powerful imperialist force.

We shouldn't omit the fact that the moment when the peasant and worker army defeated the imperialist force was just after the representatives in the U.S. Congress voted to refuse to give Nixon any more of the funding that he had requested to continue the war. Nixon could have continued for several more years, but the Congress end it by the usual method of choosing not to pay for it.

[The Idler]

... what happened was middle-class, almost exclusively white kids got mommy and daddy to pay for their schooling so they could protest the war while working-class kids ended up being the ones dying. This could help explain why blacks made up a massive portion of the men in Vietnam as compared to their % of the general population. Now, I'm not saying I support what the soldiers were doing at all but they didn't have the means to get away from the draft and FUCK ALL THOSE RICH, NEW LEFT PIECES OF SHIT, honestly.
4 middle-class American students were shot by Ohio National Guard too. Its not really comparable to the working-class American dead in Vietnam, but then that isn't really comparable to the working-class Vietnamese dead in Vietnam.
http://www.rianpasa.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/kent-state-massacre.jpgKent State University (Vietnam war protest) Massacre, Ohio, 1970 (Pulitzer prize winning photo)

[Cumannach]

I don't think the US suffered a "humiliating" defeat. The US mass murdered two million vietnamese while the vietnamese were only able to take around 40k troops. I think it is a leftist myth that the vietnamese had some sort of glorious success. The "success" was drenched in the blood of millions of peasants.

The US did indeed suffer a humiliating defeat. The heroic and titanic sacrifice of the Vietnamese to achieve victory will serve as an inspiration to communists forever.

[Brother No. 1]

I don't think the US suffered a "humiliating" defeat.

I think they did. Why? Well they were the Capitalist superpower and being beaten by the Vietcong and a small country thats mostly rual made them look weak to the other Capitalist nations. Besides they thought they were an all powerful nation and then they saw the truth an extent.

[Cymru]

The impossible victory in:


Howard Zinn, ‘A Peoples History of the United States’, (Pearson Education, 2003) . Good chapter about the Vietnam War. It's available online I think.


also with regards to the massacres committed:



Kendrick Oliver, ‘Atrocity, Authenticity and American Exceptionalism: (Ir) rationalising the Massacre at My Lai’, Journal Of American Studies, 37 (2003), pp.247-268

I think I have it in PDF if anyone wants it.

[brigadista]

the widely touted rationale for the war - at the time by the US was the domino theory
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domino_theory

the organisational and strategic methods of the vietcong in fighting probably the most powerful army in the world at the time were truly inspirational

and on a contemporary note- waterboarding was regularly used by US army intelligence in field interrogations of vietnamese people during that war--- so it is nothing new for the US,,,

however i think the increasing number of body bags coming home to the US had a lot to do with the ending of the war

[Andropov]

Out of interest how much aid did the Vietcong receive?

[x359594]

Out of interest how much aid did the Vietcong receive?

The Vietcong, or to call it by its proper name the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam, received almost all of its military aid from Hanoi but otherwise lived off the land and supplemented its military aid with captured ordnance and material.

[Andropov]

The Vietcong, or to call it by its proper name the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam, received almost all of its military aid from Hanoi but otherwise lived off the land and supplemented its military aid with captured ordnance and material.
And how much aid did Hanoi receive?

[x359594]

And how much aid did Hanoi receive?

According to historians of the era, from all socialist countries, including the USSR, Eastern Bloc, and PRC, Hanoi received about one tenth what the RVN got from the US, not to mention the half million US ground troops deployed in the South.

[rivalin]

yeah, they had much less to work with.

[gorillafuck]

I dont beleive a word my history teacher says since he told us that the North Vietnamese invaded South Vietnam because they were jealous of their mopeds.
That's a joke, right?

[Verix]

before veitnam america did what ever it wanted in less powerful countrys like it owned the place the vietnam war was sad, but it kept america from openally opposing any revoluting movements in other countrys after it, its all so my belief if the US had of taken veitnam smoothly with little resistence it would have turned its eyes on cuba next and what after that russia? china? many many many veitnese died but i say there deaths were worth it rather then live under the command of the US corporations!